Kaziranga National Park, located in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, is one of the world’s great game parks and is hands-down the best place to see large mammals anywhere in Asia. With the majority of the world’s existing populations of Indian one-horned rhinoceros, wild Asian water buffalo, and swamp dear, as well as the highest density of tigers anywhere, mammals are never out of view (and often there are many species as once, like in the photo above). Like other of the great game parks around the world, the birding is as good as the mammal-watching: raptors are abundant, waterbirds are everywhere, and the grasslands and forests hold a variety of highly sought species.

Because this extension had participants from both the preceding Northeast India tour as well as the Bhutan tour that followed, I have elected to write a separate trip report. Besides the awesome mammal-viewing and incredible photographic opportunities that Kaziranga offers, it also holds hundreds of birds that are not possible on either of those tours. In just two full and two partial days in and around the park, we saw about 100 species not seen on each of the main tours.